Museum of English Rural Life

The Museum of English Rural Life sits in Reading, behind the University of Reading’s London Road Campus. The red-brick East Thorpe building, designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1880, once belonged to Alfred Palmer of Huntley & Palmers. In 1911 it became St Andrew’s Hall, a women’s residence, later mixed in 1969. After closing in 2001 the site was transformed for the museum at a cost of £11 million. The university runs the museum, which holds national accreditation from Arts Council England and the National Archives. The museum grew from the university’s agricultural links and opened to the public in 1955. Its collections began with gifts from H. J. Massingham and Lavinia Smith, covering farming from 1750 to today. A major redevelopment between 2013 and 2016 added ten new galleries, including one for Ladybird Books artwork. In 2016 it reopened with over 25,000 objects on display, plus archives, photographs and rare books. A bat found in 2019 was named MERLin and given a library card to mark the museum’s 70th year. Visitors enter through the original East Thorpe house and pass into a modern extension that overlooks restored gardens. Inside, galleries show livestock portraits, hand tools, ploughs and farm machinery alongside sewing machines and equipment. The specialist library holds the Tools & Trades History Society collection. Outside, the contrast between the Victorian brickwork and contemporary architecture frames the urban setting.